Facebook CEO Zuckerberg to testify at House committee April 11

Trump campaign officials have downplayed Cambridge Analytica's role, saying they briefly used the company for television advertising and paid some of its most skilled data employees.

Facebook's chief executive will testify before a key House committee next week, the panel said yesterday, the first of three potential hearings where Mr Mark Zuckerberg could face questions about data privacy practices.

Along with showing us how fast and loose Facebook has been playing, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has shown us just what can be done with all that data social media is collecting on us - toppling governments, electing idiots and basically confusing people over what is false and what is true. The company said the total number of potentially impacted users (562,455 people) is 0.6 pc of the global number of potentially affected people.

Other changes incorporate some of the restrictions Facebook previously announced on what third-party apps can collect from users and their friends.

The scraping by malicious actors typically involved gathering public profile information - including names, email addresses and phone numbers, according to Facebook - by using a "search and account recovery" function that Facebook said it has now disabled. "By increasing transparency around ads and Pages on Facebook, we can increase accountability for advertisers - improving our service for everyone".

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a new event for his upcoming schedule: a date with the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 11.

While Facebook says the number of affected users was "over inclusive", Ankush Johar, Director at Infosec Ventures - security solutions firm - didn't agree, fearing the actual figure may be "exponentially bigger". Although Facebook says the changes aren't prompted by recent events or tighter privacy rules coming from the European Union, it's an opportune time.

The EU and Facebook will discuss changes Facebook needs to make to protect its users in the wake of the scandal, and consider how Facebook needs to adapt to new EU data protection rules which will be implemented on 25 May.

He will testify about the matter next Tuesday and Wednesday during two U.S. congressional hearings. We did not receive more data than this.

In a rare conference call with journalists, the tech giant's founder and CEO admitted that it "didn't do enough" to protect its users and promised that the company was now committed to taking more responsibility for keeping people's data safe.

On Tuesday, Facebook announced it had removed dozens of additional Facebook and Instagram accounts tied to a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency, which spread disinformation online in the US before the 2016 election according to the Treasury Department.

That legislation was introduced last October to counter concerns about foreign nationals using social media to influence American politics, an issue being looked at as part of an investigation into possible Russian meddling during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Facebook announced its own estimate in a blog post on Wednesday. Neither can they opt entirely out of Facebook's data collection.

Britain's Information Commissioner says some 30 organizations - including Facebook - are being investigated to see how social media platforms were used in political campaigns.